Luke Plunkett

One of the key draws of making the new Kinect mandatory for the Xbox One is that it allows you to do stuff like turn the console on just by talking to it. For Americans, you'll be able to do that at launch, but if you're from Australia or Austria, you won't.

Some very, very small print on the Xbox One's website says the following:

Xbox voice commands will not be available in all markets on the product release date. Voice commands will be available at launch in US, UK, CA, FR, and DE.

Countering this, however, is Microsoft's Albert Penello, who clarifies slightly that, at launch, Spanish (both Spain and Mexico), Italian and Portugese (so, Brazil) will also be ready to go. With a catch: only the US, UK, Canada, France and Germany will be able to use some commands, like the "Xbox On" activiation prompt.

We've contacted Microsoft for clarification on this, and will update if we hear back.

It's a strange case of affairs. How can the console recognise so many different British accents but not Australian? Why German accents but not Austrian?

Hopefully it's something that's patched in pretty quickly after launch. It's going to be weird enough talking to my console to turn it on. Having to do it in a British accent isn't going to help.